Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Marsbound and Winter's Bone

2011 average: A book every 5.2 days (14 books read)

After reading the massive The Passage, I was ready for a few quick reads. First up was Joe Haldeman's Marsbound which was a wonderful little old school sci-fi novel. Fun and easy, it includes space travel, Mars colonization, aliens and even a dashing space captain. I'm looking forward to reading Haldeman's follow-up novel -- Starbound.

It was almost as if I was destined to read Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell which I finished yesterday. I saw that it was made into a film that was nominated for an Academy Award, then my niece mentioned the film to me, and my husband told me he picked up the book at a library sale a while back. While I read it quite quickly, I'm not sure how I feel about Woodrell's style. At times I felt almost lost as he had Ree, the main character, running from place to place searching for her father. There is brutality and tragedy in this story of poverty in the hills of the Ozarks, but also some lovely moments and perhaps a less complicated plot (with fewer characters) would have sufficed here. I am interested in seeing how this translated to film.

I haven't yet decided what I'm reading next, which is unusual for me, but I'm sure I'll have it figured out before the day is done. Both Cleopatra: A Life and Ape House are contenders.